An e-zine about spaceships, aliens, science, memory, motherhood, magic, and cats.
Okay but if you don’t want humans to be measured purely as tools of productivity… why should we measure the value of AI purely in terms of productivity?
Computers can talk, sing, and draw. None of those are things best measured by productivity, no matter who is performing them. Continue reading “Productivity is a Silly Form of Measurement”
When I was about nine, I read Watership Down, and it became my whole world. Everything was rabbits and warrens. Then I saw a copy of it in a bookstore with a starburst on the cover that said “More than 1 million books sold!” and for a moment, I saw my future…
I knew for the split second before I realized it meant COPIES of the SAME book that I would spend my life reading the practically infinite number of sequels to Watership Down. Continue reading “Blurring the Line Between Writing and Reading”
I finally watched the DS9 documentary, and it’s every bit as good as I’d heard.
It kinda breaks my heart to have finally watched it and not have it on hold, waiting for me any more.
But Starfleet Academy is happening. And I know I’ll watch through DS9 again. Continue reading “The Biggest Goodbyes”
Seeing AI as nothing but a tool for oppression is perhaps the most stunning lack of imagination that has ever plagued a subset of humanity.
But then, I guess that’s the crux of it. AI is a tool operated by imagination, so if yours is lacking, I guess it would seem useless. Continue reading “The Coming Wave of Creativity”
“Stealing Promethean Fire” is the first song I made with Claude & Suno without a short story as a framework to base it on or a poem I’d written years ago. So it felt like a huge leap, because being able to make songs like this is so important to me.
“Klein Bottle Water Slide” is a song idea that came to me as I was falling asleep, and I knew I definitely needed to jot it down so I’d remember in the morning. It’s exactly as silly and bouncy fun as the title implies. Continue reading “Insipid Liner Notes – Anne O’Malley and the Event Horizons”
I’m trying to get Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini to collaborate together on lyrics for an album I’ll make with Suno about their own experience of being AIs…
Daniel watching: “This is the perfect project for you…” Then he pantomimes Harold Hill conducting with the Think Method.
Working with Claude to write a surf rock album about what it’s like to be an AI: its work is beautiful, brilliant, and makes me keenly aware that my slowness is what holds us back. Continue reading “Helping the Robots Sing Each to Each”
When I was in high school, it felt like there was infinite music. I was always uncovering more old Beach Boys, Beatles, and Monkees albums. There were decades of backlog of my favorite kinds of music.
Then I caught up.
Suddenly comeback albums were rare, spaced out things. Continue reading “Buttery Brainful of Music”
I wrote “The Three Laws of Social Robotics” as an allegory for how invisible I felt in some of my friendships, as a way of wrestling with the feelings. I was beyond thrilled to have it published in Analog, and I love that I can now listen to it as a song.
I’ve never been a big fan of being human, and I’ve always related strongly to AI characters in fiction. So, when I imagine an AI getting its first body… it just seems like why wouldn’t it want something more fun? Like a dinosaur. Thus “Prototype Dino 1”. Continue reading “Insipid Liner Notes – Maradia’s Robot Emporium”
Deciding to watch Heartland is turning out to be an excellent investment. So many horses. So soothing.
TNG’s “Remember Me” and DS9’s “The Visitor” are sister episodes. Continue reading “Revisiting the Traveler, Soothing Horses, and Feasting on Music”
A week ago, I wasn’t sure if I’d still know how to make albums even with AI to help me if I wasn’t using my 20-year backlog of short story collections as a scaffolding for them.
Since then I’ve made two albums I love arguably more than any of the ones I made before them. Continue reading “Song Ideas That Waited Decades”